Red Cross Gains Access to Syrian Prison Cells

Red Cross Gains Access to Syrian Prison Cells

Red Cross. Amman/Geneva - The situation of thousands of Syrian detainees will now be revealed to the public after the Syrian Government has opened its Damascus main prison cell to the Red Cross. Thousands of Syrians were detained since the beginning of the 5 month anti-government uprising.

The official announcement came Monday when military forces of Bashar al-Assad, Syrian President, killed 10 civilians on the same day in an attempt to fully end the pro-democracy demonstrations and also to stop numerous refugees from fleeing to Turkey. The ICRC or the International Committee of the Red Cross hopes to assess the conditions of the detainees and also how they are being treated.

However, it has already been agreed upon that any findings or the results of the assessment will be kept confidential and will only be shared among authorities concerned. This has alarmed human rights groups saying that the impact and significance of the visits will diminish. Radwan Ziadeh, a Washington-based Syrian activist, said there are about 15,000 detainees in Syria and 5 are his relatives. Most of them are not even in formal prison cells.

The International Committee of the Red Cross believes that this step will open more humanitarian activities in Syria. The organization has visited central detention cells in the capital Damascus and in its suburb of Adra. It was the first time ICRC was given access by the Syrian Government.

Posted by James Fried on Wednesday September 07 2011, 4:57 AM EDT. Ref: CNN. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0